by: -RoG-

...CONTINUED

Palmer Snappin' Skulls

Hadn't seen these before, but I thought they looked like a fun new Halloween treat to test this season. They're milk chocolate skulls, not unlike a Nestle Crunch bar, but they're also filled with Pop Rocks candies. Not the first time I've had a candy that mixes the two together, but always interested to try them. I particularly like how the chocolates don't really look like skulls, but instead appear to be modeled after some wacky vintage Halloween masks. Of course, there's the addition of the band-aid to its forehead which has no explanation whatsoever. What happened to their foreheads? Were they attacked? Did a mad scientist carve them open and fill them with Pop Rocks? I guess some mysteries aren't' meant to be solved. Speaking of mysteries, the chocolate is tasty enough, but I didn't detect even a hint of that classic Pop Rocks "pop" in the ones that I ate, so that was disappointing. Come on Palmer... learn to make those Pop Rocks... POP!

out of 5 haunted houses

Tic Tac Monsters

Tic Tac was one of the surprise entries of 2013, as their packaging is so small, you wouldn't expect them to be able to pull off anything Halloweeny worth mentioning. But they did, and then they did it again in 2014. This year, they've kicked things up a notch by creating these awesomely oversized Tic Tac containers made out to look like the heads of Frankenstein and the Mummy! The flavors aren't anything new, though they've been given new names, "Grrr...een Apple" and "Mummy Orange". The designs on these limited edition containers are absolutely perfect, and deserve a place on your display shelves just as the Tic Tacs deserve a place in your gullet. Grrr...eeen? Grrr...eat!

out of 5 brains in jars of formaldehyde

Spooky Swirls

It's always nice to see an officially licensed Universal Monsters product, so finding two lollipops that were dedicated to The Mummy and The Creature from the Black Lagoon was good to see. Odd that they didn't make pops based on any of the other classic monsters though. It took me quite a while to get these lollies out of their packages, and I actually had to bust out a box cutter to pry away the thick cellophane that was tightly wrapped around each one. The Mummy is based on a candy corn flavor, while the Gillman is a sour grape. Unfortunately, while the presentation on these is nice, it wasn't worth all the energy expended to get to the actual candy. These are bland, bland, blaaaaand. Our favorite movie monsters deserve better than this. The Mummy one barely tastes like candy corn, and the Creature one isn't grape at all... nor is it sour... it's purely chemical. I imagine it's closer to what the Creature would taste like if you actually licked him. Now that's really scary.

out of 5 hearses

Melville Candy Blood Lollipop

Here's another one that was nearly impossible to remove from the packaging. Maybe they should start bundling these together with box cutters and crowbars or something. Anyway, it's a bright red lollipop that's supposed to look like it's made of blood, but looks are unfortunately all it has going for it. The cherry flavor is far too mild. It's not awful or anything, and certainly better than the aforementioned Universal Monsters pops, but the lollipops you get for free when you visit a bank shouldn't taste a thousand times better than "gourmet" ones like this.

out of 5 Counts (ah-ah-ah!)

Laica Horror Chocolate Skeletons & Ghosts

We've all seen these kind of classic chocolates that come in little mesh bags. Usually, they're shaped like coins and wrapped in gold foil, but in this case, they're shaped like little ghouls and wrapped in foil with skeleton and ghost designs on 'em. Nothing too fancy, but I've always been a big fan of classic candies like this, and the chocolate itself is fantastic. Always worth picking up a bag of these if you happen to spot 'em.

out of 5 leaf piles

Cotton Candy Swirlz

These caught my attention pretty quickly, as I loved the idea of a ghost spinning cotton candy spirals from its own ectoplasm for kids to eat. What I didn't realize until I took it home was that the cotton candy is actually caramel flavored! It's an odd thing to have such a distinct flavoring mentioned only in small print in the bottom corner of the packaging. And man, as soon as you open the bag, you are hit with a STRONG scent of caramel... and it's a really good scent at that. I'm also happy to report that the cotton candy actually tastes quite good. The caramel flavoring works really well with it, and thankfully doesn't have any kind of chemical aftertaste. I've never had caramel-flavored candy corn until today, and now I actually want a whole lot more of it. Good stuff and well worth devouring!

out of 5 black widow spiders

Peeps Tombstones

As if Peeps didn't already do enough to raise the bar this year with their treats, they've also given us a set of nine marshmallow tombstones (also available in smaller packs of three). There's nothing fancy about the flavoring on these, just your standard marshmallow Peeps, but the designs are great. Three different tombstones that read "Boo!", "R.I.P." and that classic graveyard pun, "IMA GONER". That combined with yet another awesome Halloween package design makes them another wonderful addition to the season.

out of 5 Chucky dolls

Brach's Peanut Butter Cup Candy Corn

Now here's a completely unexpected candy corn variety. I never thought of combining them with peanut butter cups, yet here we are. They have three colors, just like the classics, but instead the colors are dark brown, light brown, and white. When you open the bag, you can smell a strong peanut butter scent, and I honestly think that's what these taste like more than anything. If you eat the bottom part separately, you can taste a very subtle hint of chocolate, but if you eat a piece whole (like any normal person would) it's the peanut butter all the way. Pretty good, but I would've preferred a better mix of the two flavors in this particular case. But hey, kudos to Brach's for continuing to test out new candy corn flavors. I love testing them out each year and hope they'll continue to surprise me with new ones in the future. If they're looking for suggestions, allow me to throw root beer flavored candy corn out there. Make it happen, Brach's!

  out of 5 puzzle boxes

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